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New discoveries await in nearby but remote area

Another year will bring more exploration and discoveries of formations that took many years to form in a cave near Fort Stanton.

Lynda Sánchez, public outreach liaison for the Fort Stanton Cave Study Project, said the cave, "exhibits hundreds, if not thousands of stalactites formed over thousands of years.

Sanchez pointed to an area of the cave called "Harmony Hall" as particularly appropriate for the holiday season.

Formations, called soda straws, in this section, "resonate as if in special orchestrated symphonic mode," she said.

"What the New Year will bring to the resolute and undaunted "subternauts" and their continued exploration of Snowy River and other parts of Fort Stanton Cave remains an exciting question mark," she said.

Sanchez compared exploration of the underground passages with space exploration.

"These men and women could be considered much like our own NASA astronauts, plowing ahead into the unknown," she said. "At this moment in time the most remote place on earth is (Fort Stanton Cave), right now. The longest formation or speleothem also is on record and that is, of course, the fascinating and ever winding Snowy River Calcite formation."

For more information about the project, contact Sánchez at 575-653-4821 or check out the website at fscsp.org.

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